


Hill of Beans

by MrProphet



Category: Jack the Giant Slayer (2013), Merlin (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-24
Updated: 2014-03-24
Packaged: 2018-01-16 21:45:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1362835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrProphet/pseuds/MrProphet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Jack the Giant Slayer belongs to New Line Cinema and Legendary Productions, and Merlin to Shine Limited.</p></blockquote>





	Hill of Beans

Gwyn met Martin Rhys at school. Mr Rhys was a peripatetic teacher who came in once a week and took each class in turn for British history. Ursula, with her usual wit, suggested that he knew so much about history because he was old enough to have lived through it. She even said as much in class once, but Mr Rhys just smiled, chuckled and said: “How very perceptive.”

Gwyn didn’t understand Mr Rhys, and he understood most grown-ups. Mr Rhys looked as if her were at least eighty – maybe seventy, if he’d lived a really fast and loose life – but sometimes acted as if he were the youngest person in the class. He wore an old-fashioned suit and his hair and beard were long and white. He looked like Santa Claus might look if he ever had to work in an office; or a school. He could be spiky and sarcastic with the least provocation, but he never failed to recognise good work or effort, nor to call out bullies and hypocrites, whether in the class, in the history he described, or even among the staff. He never tried to be cool, and perhaps because of that attained the kind of cool that teachers only ever achieved without art.  
Not that such a cool was any help to Gwyn when, during the school field trip to the Tower of London, he found himself without a partner and ended up having to line up next to Mr Rhys. There was little more mortifying for any fifth former than to be partnered with the teacher.

“Roddy seems… unusually intense,” Mr Rhys noted as the class shuffled through the room holding the crown jewels.

“Roddy’s like that,” Gwyn replied. “He spends all his time in the old-ee book-ee shop-ee, and if I think someone reads too much…”

Mr Rhys chuckled. “Nothing wrong with reading; it’s all a question of what you do with what you learn.” He raised a hand and muttered softly. Gwyn, unable to hear what he was saying, looked over and started. For a moment he could have sworn that Mr Rhys’s eyes had turned bright gold; but only for a moment.

“Oh, look,” Mr Rhys said as they stepped forward. “Roddy dropped something.” He stooped with a speed which belied his age and picked up a small pouch. “I wonder what it is.”

“It’s a dice bag,” Gwyn replied. He moved to tap Roddy on the shoulder, but Mr Rhys held him back.

“Let’s just see, shall we…” With wrinkled, yet deft fingers he untied the cord and tipped up the bag. Five smooth, dark objects fell into his hand. “Well,” he said. “This isn’t good.”

“They’re… beans,” Gwyn said.

“Yes,” Mr Rhys sighed, “but no ordinary beans. If he has these and he’s looking at the crown like that…” Swiftly, he pushed the beans into the pocket of Gwyn’s coat and replaced them with four buttons and a pound coin from his pocket, then moved forward to get a closer look at the jewels, jostling Rody as he did so. Roddy scowled and, as Mr Rhys pulled back, checked his pocket, finding to his obvious relief that the pouch was still there.

“What are you doing?” Gwyn asked.

“Accelerating,” Mr Rhys replied. “I need to talk to you away from the rest of the class. Bring Ursula.”

Gwyn was taken aback. “What…? How…?”

Mr Rhys shrugged. “Improvise,” he suggested.

“And why Ursula?” Gwyn demanded. “She’s loud, overbearing, completely full of herself…”

“Yes,” Mr Rhys replied, and he got a faraway look on his face. “Just like someone else I used to know.” He chuckled fondly. “Anyway. Hurry up! We don’t have all day.”

“Why? What are you talking about?”

Mr Rhys chuckled again, but this time it was a much darker sound. “Fee Fi Fo Fum. Ask not whence the thunder comes. Ask not where the herds have gone. Nor why the birds have ceased their song. When coming home, don't take too long; for monsters roam in Albion.”

Gwyn thought for a moment. “Are you crazy?” he asked. “Is that your problem.”

“None of your cheek,” Mr Rhys replied. “Do as I ask or we’ll be having this talk in detention, and probably up to our eyeballs in giants.”

**Author's Note:**

> Jack the Giant Slayer belongs to New Line Cinema and Legendary Productions, and Merlin to Shine Limited.


End file.
